Starting a Business – Part 4 – Money and Marketing!

Make sure the business has the potential to start generating cash flow immediately. No matter what people say every worthwhile business option should have the capacity to do this.

What is your financial vision?
Will this business serve your primary aim?
How much money do you need to live the way you wish?

There are few things worse than investing time and energy in an opportunity that is going to die. To get a feeling for the inherent strength of your business opportunity, do an offline search to see if the business is stable enough.

How does the seller benefit from selling this business to you? You may be paying to get into something, but a one-time payment for a business opportunity is rarely a recipe for long term stability. The seller should be driving long-term income from it to ensure any long term support for you: classics are hosting fees, affiliate fees and royalties from compulsory products, upgrade fees and so on.

How does it make money? How do you make money out of it? How much? What are the projected returns? How certain are they? How much can you make?
What are the ‘exit’ costs if you simply want to stop playing?

If it is reasonable to assume that this business can serve your primary aim, it is worth pursing. If it is unreasonable to assume that it can, then no matter how exciting, interesting or appealing the business, forget it. Walk away from it. It will consume too much of your precious time and prevent you from finding a true opportunity worth pursing.

Mark Victor Hansen says that:
“Prosperous people have always known two truths: the importance of having multiple streams of income and the power of residual income”.

Paul Zane Pilzer, a leading US economist, entrepreneur and author of the book ‘The Next Trillion’, has come forward in the last 2 years to predict that the wellness industry will be the next trillion dollar industry by 2010.

He goes on to predict that this burgeoning industry will actually outstrip the internet in global expenditure.

The wellness industry boom is largely driven by the population explosions that produced the ‘Baby Boomers’. For the first time ever, there are more older people than young people. The ‘Baby Boom’ generation has more disposable income than any other generation. They like to spend money on themselves and their health and well being is of primary importance.

The wellness industry encompasses anything that can potentially make people feel good, look good; live better, live longer so the product and service opportunities are enormous.

In addition, the internet industry is still growing and any business must capitalise on the opportunities for marketing, sales and even operational efficiencies through the internet.

Does your business benefit from the explosive growth in one of these industries?
What about market share?
How many people in the market can you capture with your business product?
Is it needed by the majority of people?
Is it consumable? – Will they come back to you for more?

There is no point going to the effort of building a client base if they only need what you have to offer once in their lives.

An associate of mine recently started a business distributing steam cleaners. Now these are ‘top of the range’ European cleaners with quality branding and a very recognisable name. He had a great passion for them which is why he spent tens of thousands of dollars setting up contracts to be the sole distributorship for this product.

What he failed to consider was the very small, non-consumable market that these appliances had.

These were very expensive machines that the average household would be unlikely to invest in and if they did choose to then it would be a once off purchase as they were unlikely to need replacement within 20 years!

What your business must establish is a client base that comes back to you every week or month to re-order another quantity of product or service until the day they leave this earth!

Paul Zane Pilzer discusses in his recent book ‘The Next Millionaires’ the types of business marketing strategies that successful people will capitalise on in the future.

Disruptive technology – is something new that comes on the market that completely changes consumer focus and also offers something of such a greater benefit to the consumer that the current market standard becomes insignificant.

Remember good old vinyl records? We didn’t see them for dust after the CD was introduced and what about traditional versus digital camera technology? The typewriter versus personal computers?

Does your business offer the best possible product or service on the market or entering the market?

Paul Zane Pilzer also reports that new wealth is being created by people who distribute things rather than manufacture things. Physical distribution is being replaced by intellectual distribution which is more about educating people about the product or service and how they can benefit from it.

What makes your business opportunity different to others?

Have you found a niche within the industry you have chosen to work within?

By understanding the industry you have chosen to purchase a business in you can often uncover a different angle on a service or a more unique product. Somewhere there is always an angle. Often more established companies can get used to ‘business as usual; and that’s your opportunity!